"Mostly Propaganda in Nature:" Kim Il Sung, the Juche Ideology, and ...

"Mostly Propaganda in Nature:" Kim Il Sung, the Juche Ideology, and the Second Korean War
NKIDP Working Paper #3
Japan relations, and the elimination of most of the pro-Kim underground groups in the South.
Fearful of falling behind in this critical competition, Kim thought it necessary to act to balance
the scales. Again, there are subtle differences within the advocates of this position. Some have
argued that Kim had a genuine belief that he might spark an indigenous uprising against the
Southern government by reassuring Park's domestic opponents of Northern support; 19 others
have argued the opposite, suggesting that Kim recognized that no such opposition movement
existed in the South in the face of the growing strength of the Park regime, and that he would
therefore have to increase efforts to destabilize the government himself. 20 Still others have
suggested that Kim knew that he could not directly influence the Southern political situation but
thought he might discourage foreign investment into the region by creating unstable conditions,
slowing down ROK growth while driving a wedge between the ROK and their foreign
investors. 21 Others have claimed that Kim's overseas audience was not limited to the West, but
that instead he sought to show the world, particularly the Third World and the smaller
Communist states, that the North was not intimidated by Southern advances and was still a
power to be taken seriously. 22 Regardless of the specifics, however, this school is rooted in the
idea that Kim's paradigm shift in the late 1960s derived largely from the improving domestic
situation within South Korea.
A fifth framework shifts the focus from the international to the domestic, and suggests
that internal conflicts were at the heart of DPRK policy. Two specific interpretations dominate
this school. The first focuses on
the emergence of a more hard-line faction in DPRK politics.
19
Martin, p. 127
20
See, for example, Charles Armstrong, Necessary Enemies," US-Korea Institute Working Paper Series, WP 08-03,
September 2008, p. 6; Bolger, Scenes from an Unfinished War; Balazs Szalontai, Maneuvering Between the Battling
Whales: North Korea’s Involvement in the Second Indochina War, 1964-1975, unpublished paper in author's
possession.
21
Yong Soon Yim, "The Dynamics of North Korean Military Doctrine," in Kwak, The Two Korea in World Politics,
pp. 124-26
22
Wayne Kiyosaki, North Korea's Foreign Relations (Praeger, 1976), p. 80.
www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp
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